Here at Reevoo we keep an eye on what’s happening in market so we can make sure we’re helping you make the right decisions when you’re buying something. Here’s what’s crossed my desk in the past month or so:
* 3D TV - Manufacturers and broadcasters seem to be serious about pursuing 3D TV technology in the next few years. Panasonic, Philips, and LG all have prototype consumer 3DTVs, while Sky have hinted at launching a sports-only 3DTV service in the next few months. Panasonic and Sky’s version would require special spectacles, but the Philips and LG versions are goggle free.
Here’s a sample of the Philips 3DTV - of course it won’t look 3D on your monitor!
* New iPod Shuffle - Apple suprised us on Wednesday with the launch of a new iPod Shuffle. The Shuffle claims to be the world’s smallest MP3 Player, and the first one that speaks. Critics have noted that it’s now even harder to replace Apple’s notoriously bad headphones, as Apple have moved all the controls to a bud on the headphones. The speech effect allows you to select a playlist after hearing it read out to you by a computerised voice. It is a potentially nice trick, but it remains to be seen if it can make up for the Shuffle’s lack of a screen. Apple iPod reviews.
* Green entertainment - MEPs are voting this month on whether to extend energy ratings like those found on white goods to all consumer electronics products in the EU. This would effectively ban some energy guzzling products, potentially including plasma televisions.
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I’ll (jonnyapps) be talking mainly about Digital Cameras and computing, Jo (the_chipstick) is full of exciting mobile phone tweets just waiting to burst out and Sam (Sambos) is the man to follow for interesting updates about anything that provides home entertainment in your living room.
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Think of Twitter as being a lot like a text message or a Facebook status update. You can ‘tweet’ your thoughts and interesting links and talk about whatever you wish.
We?ve been looking into design here at Reevoo. Good product design is becoming more and more important and clever and innovative designs are what consumers look for to save time and make their lives a little easier.
So we looked into which brands were coming up with the best designs. When a shopper buys something from one of Reevoo?s 55 retail partners, they are sent an email asking them to rate it. One of the categories they rate is the design of the product.
Looking at 22,000 products, with over 15 reviews, we took these design scores and ranked all of the products in terms of their score for design ? the product with the highest score at the top.
What we found was pretty impressive for one brand in particular. In the top 100 products for design, a whopping 51 of them are from Samsung! It?s a real result for the brand that has put a strong focus on design in recent years.
LG in second place and Sony and Apple in joint third made up the top 3.
If you?re a regular reader of Decide What to Buy, I?m sure you can guess at which product Numatic had in the top 100? Hetty! She?s had a stonking 2008, already topping the best vacuum cleaner list back in June and in March.
But we wanted to look deeper into the data so we split the products up into categories. We looked at Home Entertainment, Mobile Phones, White Goods, Computing and Home and DIY in more detail to see which brand?s products performed the best for design in each category.
If you want to be cool, drive an Aston Martin, play Nintendo and wear Agent Provocateur…not necessarily all at the same time. These are some of the coolest brands around according to the annual Coolbrands survey.
Voted for by the Coolbrands council and 2,500 members of the public, Aston Martin receives the award for the coolest brand for third year running - certainly aided slightly by a certain Mr Bond who is rather partial to their vehicles.
Relative newcomer, the iPhone is in at second place, preceding the mother ship ? Apple, in third.
There?s no doubt that brands and celebrity go hand in hand. With Bond helping out in the car department and constantly-in-the-press Daisy Lowe being the face of Agent Provocateur, there?s a healthy little partnership of which somebody can be very proud.
But it?s not all down to the celebs. With brands like Apple, Nintendo and Bang & Olufsen it shows that brands who constantly lead their field in design and innovation are worthy recipients of the accolade.
Congratulations should also go to the Tate Modern who have managed to get onto the list at number 10 - pretty impressive with all those super-brands on there.
You can check out the top 10 coolest brands below:
Top 10 Coolest Brands
1. Aston Martin
2. iPhone
3. Apple
4. Bang & Olufsen
5. YouTube
6. Google
7. Nintendo
8. Agent Provocateur
9. Rolex
10. Tate Modern
Rumours have been flying around about a Google Android mobile for ages now but it seems that it may all come true sooner than we thought. Earlier today, Reuters leaked a story that Google and T-Mobile are on the verge of releasing the first mobile equipped with Android. The sleuths believe that we could hear news as early as the 23rd September.
Much to my disappointment, the rumours suggest that it will run on an HTC handset – not the most exciting of prospects but we know the technology will be worth it. Let’s hope the handset’s not too clunky.
Just in case you haven’t heard about Google Android, it’s an open source operating system and software platform for mobiles. Among other cool things, it will allow you to combine applications – so you could be looking up a contacts address and need to find where they live. With a simple click, you will be taken to the map application which will show you exactly where to go. You can also quickly switch your view to ‘street level’ so that you can see what the place looks like too. Very handy.
There’s also text chat that shows up at the top of the screen whenever you get a ‘notification’.
There are loads more features and functions – check out this video to see Google founder Sergy Brin and Steve Horowitz talking about Android with a demo:
News just in that those clever chaps over at Pioneer have managed to produce the first 16-layer optical disk with a whopping 400GB capacity. Each layer adds 25GB to this spectacular plastic sandwich. Unfortunately they’re are read-only at the moment but they’ve all got their heads down to develop recordable versions.
If you’re wondering whether these disks will be compatible with existing Blu-ray gear, Pioneer insist they will. These prototypes will be on show on 13th July at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 in Hawaii, so we’ll hopefully know more then. We’ll keep you posted.
Has the PSP gone micro pocket-sized? Nope, it’s the new Sony Ericsson F305. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was a mini gaming device because it’s been decorated with the classic ‘O’ and ‘X’ buttons as well as a D-pad. They’ve even mixed in a bit of wii. Nintendo Wii, that is. The pre-loaded games on the F305 are movement-controlled, much like the Wii. You’ve got Bowling, Bass fishing and Jockey – sounds thrilling doesn’t it? But if that doesn’t get you excited, maybe the stereo speakers on the back of the handset, the Bluetooth multiplayer games, the expandable memory or the track ID will?
If you’ve been wondering about what colours the handsets come in, you can chose from polar white or mystic black, which I think may have been so-called to make the phones sound a bit more exciting. If you don’t share my scepticism, you can race to pick one up at the end of the summer. It’ll be aimed at the low to mid-range market so it shouldn’t break the bank – good job, if you ask me…
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